The features of hypertext are said to drive its function, just as the form of the book was said to determine the nature of the text, the author, etc. I will call this the functionalist fallacy. Here are some examples. To consider hypertext fiction "involves deducing its qualities from the defining characteristics of hypertext" (Landow, p. 183). Again, hypertext obliges us to reject "the solace and reassurance of linear narrative" (Landow, p. 183). Note the connotation of illusion with which Landow endows narrative here.

This leads to a more general claim: a hierarchical model of text is opposed to a topographical model, and this in turn follows the functionalist view of the difference between the book and the hypertext. Since hypertext is non-linear, says Bolter, "A hypertext has no canonical order. Every path defines an equally convincing and appropriate reading, and in that simple fact the reader's relationship to the text changes radically. A text as a network has no univocal sense; it is a multiplicity without the imposition of a principle of domination" (Bolter, p. 25). "In place of hierarchy, we have a writing that is not only topical: we might also call it 'topographic.' . . . Electronic writing is both a visual and verbal description. It is not the writing of a place, but rather a writing with places, spatially realized topics" (Bolter, p. 25). Hypertext permits graphic representations as well, such as a tree or network diagram, images, etc. (this has always been possible in book form too, of course). See his example of a magazine page as topographic, which is comparable to the "windowed" environment offered on the computer (Bolter, p. 69).

The computer also brings into view the network model of text, beyond linear and hierarchic structures: network appears to be more fundamental than either. "Now the computer brings the network to the surface of the text. The computer can not only represent associations on the screen; it can also grant these associations the same status as the linear-hierarchical order. It is as easy for the reader to follow an electronic footnote as it is to scroll to the next screen. The invisible network of associations becomes visible and explicit to an extent never before possible" (Bolter, p. 113). There is a reading issue here: such a network represents the author's associations, which are probably not the same as yours as reader. No hypertext system that we are provided with can represent the individual literary echoes, memories, etc., that we bring to reading a literary text, and which constitute a significant part of why we read. "In computer writing any relationships between textual elements can float to the surface; the computer invites the writer to reveal the inner structure in the appearance and the behavior of the text" (Bolter, p. 117) But this is available to the writer, not the reader (until we have fully interactive systems, at least).

Bolter's reification of the printed text again points to the need for a theory of reading. "The printed book or written codex encourages the notion of a text as an organic whole -- a unit of meaning that is physically separate from and therefore independent of all other texts." (Bolter, p. 163). Such a text is said to be transparent: "In the world of print, the ideal was to make a text transparent, so that the reader looked through the text to the world beyond" (Bolter, p. 167). This disregards some standard accounts of literary reading by Shklovsky, Mukarovsky, etc.